The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1887-07-14
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The Weekly Discourse Of the Great
Brooklyn Preacher
Subject: Holding the Ropc."--
preached at Martha's
Vineyard,1

TEXT; "Through tpindoto n a basket
'oas let doCn bY TIE pcall"- Cor. xi., So.
Sermons on Paul in jail, Paul on Mars Hin,
Paul in shipwreck, Paul before the Sanhedrim,
Paul before Felix ale plentiful, but in my
text we have Paul in a basket. Damascus Is
city OF white and glistening architecture,
sometimes called "the eye of the East, someA
times called pearl surrounded by emeralds,"
at one time distinguished for swords of
the best material, called Damascus blades,
and upholstery of richest fabric called
damasks. A horseman by the name Of
saul, riding toward this city, had been
thrown from the saddle The horse had
dropped under flash from the sky, which
at the same time was so bright it blinded
the rider for many days, and, think, SO per-
manently injured his eyesigbt that this defect
of vision became the thorn in the flesh he
afterward speaks Of He started for Damas-
Gus to butcher Christians, but after that hard
fall from his horse he was g changed man
and preached Christ in Damascus till the city
was shaken to its foundation
The Mayor gives authority for his arrest
and the popular cry is xiii him! hill himm
The city is surrounded by high wall and the
gates are watched by the police lest the
Cicilan preacher escape Many of the houses
were built on the wall and their balconies pro-
jected clear over and hovered above the gar
kets out of these balconies and pull up fruits
and flowers from the gardens. To this day
visitors at the monastery at Mount Sinai are
lifted and let down in baskets. Detectives
prowled around from house to house looking
for Paul, but his friends hid him, now in one
place, now in another. He is no coward,
as fifty incidents in his life de-
monstrates. But he feels his work
is not done yet and so he evades assassina-
tion. 6 Is that preacher heresn the foam
ing mob shout at one house door. SIS that
fanatic here I" the police shout at another
house door, Sometimes ON the street incog-
nito he passes through crowd Of clenched
fists and sometimes he secretes himself on
the housetops. AT last the infuriated
populace get on sure track Of him. They
have positive evidence that he is in the
house of one of the Christians, the balcony
Of whose home reaches over the wall.
Hero he is Here he isln The
voclferation and blasphemy and bowling of
the pursuers are at the front door They break
in. Fetch out that gospelizer, and let us
hang his head on the city gate. Where is hen'
The emergency was terrible Providentially
there was good stout basket in the house.
Pauls friends fasten rope to the basket.
Paul steps into it, The basket is lifted to the
edge OF the balcony on the wall, and then
while Paul holds on to the rope with both
hands, his friends lower away, carefully and
cautiously, slowly but surely, further down
and further down, until the basket strikes
the earth and the apostle steps out, and afoot
and alone starts on that famous missionary
tour, the story of which has astonished earth
and heaven. Appropriate entry in Paul,
diary of travels Through window IN
basket was let down by the wall"
Observe first, on what slender tenure
great results hang. The ropemaker who
twisted that cord fastened to that lowering
basket Epau, hpt ,,,ftb nd
upon the strength of it. How if it had been
broken and the apostles life had been dashed
'outt What would have become of the Chris
tian church! All that magnificent mission.
airy work in Pamphlia, Cappadocia, Galatia,
Macedonia would never have been accom-
pllshed All his writings that make up Sc
Indispensable and enchanting a part of the
New Testament would never have been writ
ten. The story of resurrection would never
have been SO gloriously told as he told it.
That example of heroic and triumphant
endurance at Philippi, in the Mediterranean
Euroclydon, under fagellation and at his
beheading, would not have kindled the
courage of ten thousand martyrdoms. But
that rope holding that basket, how much de.
pended on it, So, again and again, great
results have hung on what seemed slender
circumstances
Did ever ship of many thousand tons cross
ing the sea have such important passenger as
had once boat of leaves from taffrail to
stern, only three or four feet, the vessel made
waterproof by coat of bitumen, and float
ing ON the Nile with the infant lawgiyer of the
Jews on board. What if some crocodile
should crunch it! What if some of the cattle
wading in for drink should sink it! Vessels
OF war sometimes carry forty guns looking
through the port holes, ready to open battle.
But that tiny craft on the Nile seems to be
armed with all the guns of thunder that bonn.
InnI ut fI1 l@,, n.-
fragile craft sailed how much historical i'm.
portance!
The parsonage at Epworth, England, Is
on fire in the night and the father rushed
through the hallway for the rescue of his
children Seven children are out and safe on
the ground, but one remains in the consuming
building. That one wakes, and finding his
bed on fire and the building crnmbling, comes
tothe window, and two peasants make a lad
der OF their bodies, one peasant standing on
the shoulder OF the other, and down the hu.
man ladder the boy dscends-John Wesley
II you would know how much depended on
that ladder of peasants, ask the millions of
Methodists on both sides of the sea. Ask
their mission stations all around the world,
Ask their hundreds of thousands already as
ceDded to join their founder, who would have
persisted but far the living stairs of peasants
shoulders
An English ship stopped at Pitcairn Island
and right in the midst of svrroundig canni-
balism and Squalor the passengers discovered
Christian colony of churches and schools
and beautiful homes and highest style of relig-
ion and civilization. For fifty years no mis-
sionary and no Christian influence had landed
there. Why this oasis of light amid desert
of heathendoml Sixty years before ship
had met disaster and one Of the sailors un-
able to save anything else went to his
trunk and took out Bible which
his mother had placed there and swan
ashore, the Bible held in his teeth. The book
was read on all sides until the rough and
vicious population were evangelical, and q
church was started and an enlightened com
monwealth established, and the worlds
history has no more brilliant page than that
which tells of the transformation of a nation
by one book. 1t did not seem of mucl
Importance whether the sailor continued II
hold the book in his teeth or let it fall in th'
| breakers, but upon what small circumstance
depended what mighty results!
Practical inference: There are no insig
nificances in our lives The minutest thing il
| part of a magnitude. ln.nity is made up o
infinitesimals. Great things an aggregation
| of small things. Bethlehem manger pulling
on a star in the eastern sky One book in
| drenched sailors mouth the evangelzatioI
of multitude. One boat of papyrus on tn,
Nile freighted with events for all ages Tn
| fate of Christendom in a basket let dow
from a window on the wall. What you dc
do well. If you make rope make it stroni
and true, for you know not how muc
may depend on your workmanship.
Won fashion a boat let it be waterproof
for YOU know not who may sail in it.
you put a Bible in the trunk of your boy O
he goes from home, let it be heard in you
PRAYERS, for it may have mission as ia
reaching as the book which the sailor carrie
in his teeth to the Pitcairn beach. The plan
est mans life is an island between two etern
ties-eternity past ripping against h
shoulders, eternity to come touching h
brow. The casual, the accidental, thi
which merely happened so, are parts OF
great plan, and the rope that lets the fugltl'
apostle from the Damascus wall is the cab
that holds to its mooring the ship OF Il
church in the northeast storm of the centurle
Again, notice unrecognized and unr
corded services Who spun that rope
Who tied it to the basket Who steadit
the illustrious preacher as he stepped In
ti Who relaxed not a muscle of the ar
: Or dismissed an anxious look from his fa'
until the basket touched the ground ar
discharged its magnificent cargoi n
one of their names has come to us, but the
| was no work done that day in Damascus
in all the earth compared with the il
portance of their work What if tn,
had in the agitation tied knot thi
+. could slipi What if the sound of the m,
at the door had led them to say Pa